


stitches

by starlight_sugar



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Knitting, Pre-Canon, Перевод на русский | Translation in Russian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 15:17:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8019034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlight_sugar/pseuds/starlight_sugar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We’re knitting,” David corrects him, and picks up his own needles. “I’m teaching you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	stitches

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [петли](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11941257) by [tunnenbery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tunnenbery/pseuds/tunnenbery)



> Rooster Teeth does not have my permission to use any portion of my work in their content.

Max, slumped over at a table in the mess hall, doesn’t look up when David walks in, or when he sits down next to him. He does, however, look up when David drops yarn and knitting needles on the table.

“What the fuck is this?” Max says, somewhere between disgusted and curious. “Are you knitting?”

“ _We’re_ knitting,” David corrects him, and picks up his own needles. “I’m teaching you.”

“Fuck off.”

He bites down the automatic _language, Max_. Now’s not the time. Instead, he keeps his voice even, a little less chipper than normal. “Pick up the needles, Max.”

“You’re giving me sharp objects?” Max tsks at him. “And you’re supposed to be the responsible one.”

“You can use the sharp objects as long as it’s for their intended purpose only.” David gestures his needles at Max’s. “Pick them up so I can show you how to hold them.”

Max glares at him for a few seconds, but he must decide that there’s no point in fighting this, because he picks the needles up. David would be lying if he said he weren’t vindictively proud of that.

“Hold them like pencils,” he says, and watches Max fumble with them. They’re shorter needles, and they’re wood, not metal. It’s less about not trusting Max with metal needles and more about sentimental value, not that he’d ever tell Max that. Max would probably throw the needles away. “There you go, like that.”

“Don’t you have other campers to deal with?” Max snaps. “Can’t you just let me be in here alone?”

David ignores him. That might be the best way to go, this time. “Pick up your yarn,” he says, and demonstrates by picking his own up. Max doesn’t move. David sighs. “Max.”

“This is a new low for you,” Max announces, but he picks the yarn up. “In your crusade to get me to actually give a shit, you’re making me knit. Are you proud of yourself?”

David unwinds some of his yarn. “Make a slipknot, about six inches from the end.” He makes a knot and then stares Max down.

“You’re exactly the kind of weirdo who would knit in his spare time,” Max grumbles as he makes a knot. David slides one of his needles through his slipknot and watches Max do the same. “I mean, seriously, you’ve got all the great outdoors here, isn’t that like your version of a wet dream?”

“I’m going to show you to cast on now. Watch closely.”

“I don’t have to watch anything _._ ”

David sighs. “This is going to be the only activity I show you all week. If you don’t like it, you’re welcome to do whatever you please.”

“Oh, so this is the camp of the week?” Max rolls his eyes. “You know my parents didn’t sign me up for knitting camp.”

David knows. Technically, Max’s parents didn’t sign him up for any camp, only “get this child out of our house” camp. Max is resentful. It’s David’s job to make him resent it a little less.

“The only activity all week,” he repeats meaningfully. “It’s a Monday, Max, this is the only thing I’ll make you try.”

Max sighs noisily, and David grins. Max points at him. “Cut that smiley shit out.”

“I’m not cutting anything out,” David says primly, and picks up his yarn. “Do what I do, okay?”

It takes ten minutes and a lot of swearing for Max to have fourteen uneven, sort of ugly stitches on his needle. He glares down at it. “This yarn sucks, these needles suck, and this is pointless.”

“You’re going to hold the needle with the stitches in your left hand.”

“What if I’m left-handed? What then?”

“I’m left-handed and I do it this way,” David says, so calmly that Max actually starts and stares at him. “Knitting is easy, Max, you’re going to like it. Pick up your other needle.”

Max picks up the other needle. “I’m only doing this so I don’t have to do anything else this week.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything else from you, Max,” David says agreeably. Max gives him a suspicious look, but David just slides one needle through his first stitch. “Do that.”

Max copies his motion. “This is stupid.”

David wraps the yarn between the needles. “Now do that.”

“No, really,” Max says, even as he wraps his yarn, and then watches David pull the new stitch through. “You could be doing anything right now. The camp could literally be on fire, with a nuclear bomb about to detonate, and you’d be in here, trying to make me knit something. Do you ever think about the futility of your actions? Because I’m thinking about it right now.”

David hums to himself and continues knitting down his row, never going faster than Max. He’s pretty sure Max doesn’t realize that he’s copying David, clumsy but steady.

“It’s real nice of you to try and make me hate this shithole a little less,” Max continues, knitting his fifth stitch. “The only problem is, I already hate it so much, it’s not gonna matter if it goes from completely hating it to just barely being able to find one single thing that doesn’t suck about this place. This is still completely stupid, and you’re a fucking idiot for trying.”

“Knitting is a good skill to have,” David says, even though he can already guess that Max won’t agree. “You’ll never run out of scarves again.”

“I don’t wear scarves,” Max snaps, starting the ninth stitch. “Or hats, or sweaters, or any of that other crap. This is literally the most pointless thing you’re ever going to teach me, and you tried to teach me Klingon.”

Technically, that’s true, although David hadn’t tried that hard. He’d just given Max a Klingon dictionary and told him to learn a few words. He was still finding ripped-out pages from that dictionary around the campgrounds.

“Knitting is more important than Klingon,” he says. “You can make things for your friends who do wear hats and sweaters!”

“My friends are smart enough not to wear hats and sweaters,” Max says. “And it’s the middle of the summer, so nobody needs them. And-” he cuts off, staring down at the empty needle. “There’s no more.”

David smiles as widely as he dares. “You just knit your first row.”

“Big fucking deal.”

“Now you switch hands, like-” David switches his needles from one hand to the other. “And you do it again.”

Max stares in disbelief. “You just do the same thing over and over?”

“There are different stitches and patterns that you can use, but it’s a lot of repetition.”

“What’s the point, then?”

“Stress relief,” David says without thinking. Max’s stare turns even more disbelieving, and David suddenly wishes he could backtrack. He’s here to be Max’s counselor, his shining beacon of what Camp Campbell should be, not someone who needs stress relief. He doesn’t waver, though. “Sometimes you just need something to do with your hands.”

After a long moment, Max says, “You disgust me, and so does knitting.”

“I’m not leaving until you have twenty rows done.”

“ _Twenty?_ ”

“Time flies when you’re knitting,” David says. “Knit fast.”

Max glares at him. “This is child labor, isn’t it? You want everyone in camp to have scarves, so you’re using me to make them.”

“Twenty rows,” David repeats. And if Max decides to keep knitting after twenty, well, David’s not about to stop him.

“Child labor,” Max says again, but he starts knitting, with a little more focus this time. David smiles to himself and goes back to his own knitting.

#

At the end of the summer, Max leaves behind a note that says simply _Fuck you, they’re mine now._ David knows immediately that he means the knitting needles - he’d considered giving Max another pair, maybe just sneaking them into the tent like he’d been doing with yarn for the last month, but he didn’t have enough needles to spare. Max already had the first pair of needles that David ever knit with; David couldn’t exactly give up another pair that he knew he wouldn’t get back.

He’s not surprised that Max kept knitting. Some kids just need something to do to keep them busy, and knitting is nice and repetitive. Maybe Max will look up patterns online and keep knitting now that camp is over. Maybe not, but it’s Max. There’s no telling.

David picks up the note and pockets it and decides that maybe, next time he sees Mr. Campbell, he should suggest a knitting camp. Just in case another camper wants to knit.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to say hi on [Tumblr](http://pervincetosscobble.tumblr.com) or [Twitter!](http://twitter.com/ezrabridgers)


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